Back To School Safety Tips For Bus Riders, Car Riders & Walkers

August 08, 2016

Back To School Safety Tips For Bus Riders, Car Riders & Walkers

It’s that time of year again! We’re either putting our children on buses, sending them out the door walking, sending them out the door driving or we’re dropping them off. Whatever the case may be for your family, there are some simple steps we can all take to keep our kids safe as they get to and from school each day. According to research by the National Safety Council, most of the children who lose their lives in bus-related incidents are 4 to 7 years old, and they're walking. Here’s our number one most important tip: SLOW DOWN!! Slowing down and taking a few extra minutes to work won’t cost you anything and may save a life.

Here are a few more tips that can help keep children safe, no matter how they get to school:

Safety tips for bus riders and walkers

Unfortunately Americans still haven’t quite figured this one out: Always yield to pedestrians in crosswalks!! Especially young pedestrians walking to school. Often kids must walk to school alone and… (surprise) don’t always follow the rules. Take extra care to look out for children in school zones, playgrounds and parks, and residential areas.

No! You can’t beat the bus!! Plus, it is illegal in all 50 states to pass a school bus that is stopped to load or unload children. Unfortunately, we can all think of a time recently when you saw this happen. It’s amazing how many tragic stories like this one and this one we still read each year.

If you have young pedestrians who must walk to school alone, throw an iTrail Solo GPS Tracking device into their backpack when heading out the door. You will receive your child’s location update every 30 to 60 seconds via text message or email. And you can know when your tracker has left a specified area using our GeoFence alerts!

More tips for pedestrian and bus safety...

In a school zone when flashers are blinking, stop and yield to pedestrians crossing the crosswalk or intersection
Never pass a vehicle stopped for pedestrians
If you're driving behind a bus, allow a greater following distance than if you were driving behind a car.

The area 10 feet around a school bus is the most dangerous for children; stop far enough back to allow them space to safely enter and exit the bus (NSC.org)

More tips for carpool drop-off safety

Don't double park; it blocks visibility for other children and vehicles
Don't load or unload children across the street from the school
Carpool to reduce the number of vehicles at the school
Put down the cellphone!
Drop off line is not for catching up and small talk. Move along!
Avoid any temptation to get out of your car during drop off and pick up.

Teen Driver Safety

Around this time of year a teen or college student will get behind the wheel of the car and drive themselves to school for the first time. This can be a freeing, happy, fun and scary experience all at the same time! Here are a few resources to help take away the scary part of the experience!

Send your teen off to school with a iTrail GPS Solo Tracking device! With this GPS tracking device, parents can see when their teens drive, how they drive, where they drive, and what roads they drive on! The iTrail really is the best device currently on the market for parents of teen drivers! Learn more about how our iTrail Solo works to give you peace of mind when sending your teen on the road in this article
We’ve also provided some great tips here for teen driver safety. These can easily be applied to teens driving themselves and their friends to and from school.
Finally, make sure you share these safety tips with your teen before they head off to college. Our handy campus safety guide will help keep your teen safe once they’ve arrived!